LABORERS (LIUNA)
Chicago Murderer's Candidacy Denied
Kenneth E. Bates, convicted of shooting a woman in 1985, has been banned
from holding office in LIUNA Local 2 in Chicago.
He was nominated to run for executive board member. LIUNA's
"in-house trial judge" Peter Vaira, ruled Feb. 23 that Bates is disqualified
as a candidate because of his conviction. Federal labor law bars anyone
convicted of murder and certain other felonies from holding union office
for 13 years after being released from prison. But the federal judge who
imposed the sentence can drop the restriction, which Bates said he'll attempt
to have done. He was sentenced to prison in 1986 and released in 1997.
Jim McGough of Laborers for Justice, a dissident group, challenged Bates' nomination. McGough has dubbed the opposition the "Organized Crime Slate." Local 2 is part of the Chicago Laborers Dist. Council which voted in 1999 to cooperate with the DOJ and LIUNA's controversial "reform" effort. [Chi. Sun-Times 2/27/01]
Union Corruption Update is made possible by the generous contributions from readers like you. NLPC, P.O. Box 6273, McLean, VA 22106-6273. Thank you.
In addition to the unions and organizations covered in this Union Corruption Update, readers can look forward to news and information on other corrupt and abusive unions in future editions.
All back issues of the Union Corruption Update can be viewed at NLPC's website (www.nlpc.org). Also available is a union-by-union and state-by-state index of all Union Corruption Update articles.
If you have story ideas or suggestions for future editions of Union Corruption Update, please email NLPC at nlpc@nlpc.org. Thank you.
Union Corruption Update is part of NLPC's Organized Labor Accountability Project which is investigating and exposing corruption and extremism in the Teamsters, LIUNA, AFL-CIO and many other union organizations. NLPC is a nonpartisan, nonprofit foundation promoting ethics and accountability in government through research, education and legal action.
Union Corruption Update Article Index (by Union)
Union Corruption Update Article Index (by State)
Organized Labor Accountability Project